crossing borders; learning new things and making friends…

Tag Archives: teaching english as a foreign language

As some of you may have seen, I was supposed to have an interview with a lady called Mercy – sadly this interview never happened. Technical issues at my end stopped the interview process; we tried to re-arrange, but nothing has come to course. However; I believe that this happened for a reason; as I am now a member of the iTutor Group.

At time of writing, I have not had any classes booked in yet and I am waiting for my training to begin. I am very excited about this, as I will be able to give the schedulers my times and days and they will book the classes for me! How exciting, right?

I want to use the funds from this venture to pay for more courses from I-to-I; there are currently two on my list that I wish to complete.

Over the last few days, after writing “HiOffer – a new beginning?” I have found that I am truly missing out on the TEFL/ExPat lifestyle. So, to persuade my mind even more, I have been reading the i-to-i blog. It is full of testimonials, tips, hints and real life experiences of current or former i-to-i graduates. This also does not help that I was speaking with an British man, who had just returned from over years in the Philippines. He was passionate that I should go and live my dream (as he put it). ‘Go, teach in China’ – that is all he said as he left me thinking.

There are many posts about the three internships; but this one struck me the most – 5 Reasons to go on the Vietnam Intership – I was surprised on what i-to-i classed as the five reasons to go. Being a bit of a culture junkie; I would have written about the culture and the food – however, I am always thinking of food. It is what gets me through the day.

Currently i-to-i are having a “Save 50% off Paid Internships” sale. Vietnam is £595 and both China and Thailand are £971.25 – however, this is only until 28th April.

I am sorry that it has been two months since my last post – life has not been good to me. I have been trying to stay focused on my current job to save the funds I need to go abroad and teach. However, while I was on Facebook one day I saw an advert of an online teaching platform – HiOffer. It is very exciting as I can set my own hourly rate.

You may have noticed that I have also added some “services” to my Facebook page – [add link]. These services are not just for people who do not speak English as their first language, but also for any student who wishes to improve their spoken and written English.

Yes I have finally done it! I was with SkimaTalk since March 2015 and I loved teaching for them. However, they changed their T&Cs – it is their prerogative to do so – but I had to do the Teacher Guideline test TWICE and had to create ANOTHER introduction piece. It seems that they have had some issues. I was hoping to be teaching on a regular basis with SkimaTalk; sadly this is no longer the case. I have been trying to sort “the issues” out since November – alas it has come to nothing.

I have decided to leave SkimaTalk and focus on italki in 2017. I am in the process of scanning all my certificates; as italki have requested them. Very efficient I would say. I am exciting about working with italki and I will also be able to learn American Sign Language and Spanish on the website!

I will keep you all posted about that. I am also going to continue with some of my i-to-i studies. I want to finish the Advanced Grammar course I started last year. There are some new courses since i-to-i joined forces with LoveTEFL. These courses have taken my eye:

Yippie! It is July and soon it will be the end of the school term. But; what I am going to do in September? Well; I have been told that on Thursday I will be finding out where I am going to be placed – I have a few days off as of end of play on Friday (nice little sporting reference for you all!) and I will be popping into the office to have a meeting. I am nervous as I am having this feeling that I am not going to be placed in Secondary, however; I still have until July 31st to make my decision. I do have some options, that will enable me to teaching more online and save my cash for moving abroad.

As well as making decisions; I have been planning my trip to the USA. I am pretty excited as it is only 28 days until I fly out there! A year of planning has been amazing! I have created a TripIt itinerary, so all my friends (here in the UK and in the USA) know where I am going to be and when. I felt that this would be a good idea, as I am travelling by myself and using public transport. I have also been sorting out what I am going to pack; I have already done a “dry pack” and I am currently underweight (Yippie!); which is good as I am travelling for 22 days – which 7 are Girl Scout camp and 4 are at Disney.

I have decided that I will do some VLogs of my trip and I will upload them onto my YouTube Channel – My TEFL Adventures – as I will be using A LOT public transport

Hey everyone, I am sorry that it has been a while since I last wrote. I have been a little down in the dumps (a quick idiom for you there!) about my TEFL career recently. As you all remember, I have been applying for jobs all over the world as well as thinking about the internships.

I have been feeling a little let down, that the jobs I have applied to in Europe have not come through or that the companies have not contacted me about the positions I applied for. If, I am to start my TEFL adventures properly in September I need to hand in my resignation by July 31st. That is not that far away…I will need to keep hurting!

I am going to look on other TEFL jobs sites; like Dave’s ESL Café for example.

Is there anywhere you think I should look? If so, add it to the comments below!

Did you know that I-to-I TEFL have joined forces with Love TEFL? Amazing news right?! Congrats to everyone on this amazing merger!

I am wondering if the Internships that were available at Love TEFL will be coming to I-to-I? I will need to ask about that next time I send an email over.

Anyway; back to the actual post! After the my last post about job hunting (Some Job News…) I had my interviews for “schools” in china. However; even though I had applied to schools I was actually going through Recruitment companies – which I have heard some bad things about the companies out in China. I felt under a little bit of pressure and I did not fully understand if I had been offered the jobs or not. This is due to them not actually saying “Congratulations Jemma; welcome to the team!” Confusing right?! I decided to decline all three of the jobs and keep my options open.

This is the reason why I have been doing some more applications. I have applied to Tree House, My English School and LearnEng in Italy and EIS in Spain. All four schools sound very good and seem to be legit.

I have been researching about flights to Italy and Spain and they are very reasonable compared to flight to Thailand and China. One-Way flights vary from £66 to £75; depending on where I fly from. I prefer Birmingham as I can use the train to get there and East Midlands as it is a direct route from my home.

I have emailed Fun Language Viseu and asked if there is any news, but there is nothing yet. I am getting nervous; a I need to let my current workplace know when I am finishing!